“They describe themselves as ‘two ordinary lasses’, so the catchphrase of the piece is ‘two ordinary girls who do extraordinary things’”
(L-R) Brundibár founder Alexandra Raikhlina; Sarah Boulter, who plays Ida Cooke; director Eilish Stout-Cairns
The full programme of this year’s Brundibár Arts Festival, which is held each January to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day, has had to be postponed until 2022, but happily one theatre event is going ahead online: The Cook Sisters – Heroines of the Holocaust.
Director Eilish Stout-Cairns and actor Sarah Boulter talk to JR’s Judi Herman about the play, which streams on Monday and tells the intriguing story of a pair of unassuming opera-loving spinster sisters from Sunderland, honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Yad Vashem.
Under the pretext of attending opera performances in Germany and Austria, Ida and Louise Cook risked their lives to rescue 29 Jews from Nazi Germany. That Ida also wrote over 100 Mills & Boon novels under her pen name Mary Burchell is just the icing on the cake in this gripping tale. Discover their story in this new play, co-devised by Lewis Matthews, director Stout-Cairns and her cast, Boulter and Natalie Simone, who have also recorded an extract that forms part of the podcast.
Ida and Louise Cook
Judi also speaks to the festival’s founder and artistic director Alexandra Raikhlina about the resonance the play has for the festival, as well as the e-book Five Composers Who Disappeared by David Mulraney, which celebrates five composers lost in the Holocaust and is released Monday 25 January by Brundibár.
The Cook Sisters: Heroines of the Holocaust streams Monday 25 January. 7pm. FREE. ONLINE. brundibarartsfestival.com. The performance will be streamed live from Gosforth Civic Theatre on the Brundibár Arts Festival YouTube page, where it will be available to watch afterwards for those who miss it live.
Five Composers Who Disappeared is published as an e-book Monday 25 January. Visit brundibarartsfestival.com for further information.
